


all the very best of us

by sunsmasher



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Established Relationship, Multi, Post-Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, not talking about our issues is always the best idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-19 23:26:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3628194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsmasher/pseuds/sunsmasher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Sora, after all. He's always fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the very best of us

Two weeks after the Mark of Mastery exam, and the whole thirteen Xehanorts revelation, and then the entire Kairi, Guardian of Light, Seventh Protector of the Kingdom thing, Kairi throws a rock at Sora's window. Riku does, too, except he misses and takes a chip out of the sunny white siding instead.

"Riku!," Kairi hisses, affecting horror. Riku ignores her, glowering, and scrounges for another pebble. This one, a dark little zip through the night, puts a dent in the gutters.

"Oh my god," Kairi whispers, actually kind of impressed now. "For a superstrong savior of worlds you have really shit aim."

"Stuff it, Kairi," Riku replies, sounding more sullen than is really flattering, and squints at the house. His last few pebbles drop forgotten to the dirt as he begins to judge the height between grass and second-story windowsill, neck craning as he tracks the gutters up.

Broad blue moonlight washes over Sora's lawn and the two of them bickering upon it, bright enough to pick out every hair on Riku's head and wash out the stars, and bright enough, too, twenty minutes ago, for Kairi to have seen Riku strolling the dim stretch of beach outside her bedroom window. She'd ran to catch him, and they'd talked a while, sand making their bare feet itch as Riku had slipped his hand into hers and she'd rested her head a moment against his shoulder, but they'd paused dutifully when Sora's house came into view. The question of whether or not to wake Sora up and take him with hadn't actually been a question since they were all about nine years old and felt those first stirrings of adolescent rebellion. Riku's ability to put dents in thick steel gutters with an errant bit of driveway gravel is far more recent.

"You gonna jump it?" Kairi asks, tossing her own handful of stones to the side. She's seen him and Sora achieve far more impossible physical feats before.

"Nah," Riku replies, embarrassment evidently wiped from his mind as the breaking-and-entering problem takes precedence. His right hand twitches a little as he speaks, like he's got an itch on his palm he's trying hard not to scratch. "Not enough of a handhold with the window closed. I'll slide in, see if he's just asleep or what."

"You can do that when you're not fighting?" Kairi says, impressed despite herself. Riku's 'step into darkness, step out of darkness, bop a bad guy over the goddamn head' trick is undoubtedly slick as hell, but Kairi can't say she's ever seen him use it outside of battle before, and certainly never on the Islands. The three of them try to maintain certain pretenses when they're on the Islands, as best they possibly can. Of course, last week Sora dropped his matches, broke his spark lighter, gave up entirely and lit his Bunsen burner with a Fira spell instead, torching all of his own biology notes and half of Wakka's besides, so their attempts at subtlety have had varying degrees of success.

In the moonlight, though, with only the washed-out stars and the fishes to see them, Riku shrugs, the twitch in his hand creeping up his arm as he fixes an eye to the house. The Way to Dawn flickers like a bad bulb in his grip. "I can mostly only do it when I've got line of sight," Riku says, "But it'll be fine. I know my way around Sora's bedroom."

There's a pause, then:

"Oh, how sordid," Kairi gasps, placing a hand to her delicately scandalized cheek in her best Cinderella impression. Riku is already rolling his eyes.

"Shut up, you know what I meant—"

"To think you might be engaging in  _illicit relations_  with another youth—"

"Kairi, you touched his—" Riku falters, blushing. "You touched his dick first!"

Kairi puts a hand to her breast and threatens a swoon. "What would your dear father think!"

"Okay, stop, fuck off, I'm getting Sora now," Riku groans, shoulders folded into that angry bird hunch he's always been so fond of, and he disappears into a dark flower of magic before Kairi can actually manage to swoon into his arms.

Which would have been pretty fun, actually, but Kairi still giggles to herself, content to have bothered at least one boyfriend to the point of fleeing as she catches that muffled little voip noise of Riku's magic spitting him back out into the world. She looks up to Sora's window, hunting for a figure or two moving in the dark, maybe the sudden light of Sora's bedside lamp, and then she pauses. Because a light has turned on.

The light is absolutely not in Sora's room.

Kairi's already doubled over laughing by the time Sora's mom starts screaming, Riku just audible shouting " _Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"_ beneath it all before he's warped back to her side. The dark filaments trailing off his shoulders are a nice little contrast to the shimmering, bloodless terror of his face as he hooks her around the elbow and bolts for the beach, hissing "Run run run  _run_  run run" as they pick up speed.

This is stunning. This is monumental. Riku magic'ed himself into Sora's parents' bedroom (oh god, she hopes they were making out) and Sora's dad is leaning out his window, nearly apoplectic with rage, and this is the best thing to happen to Kairi all year.

"Riku! And is that— Kairi!" Sora's dad's voice carries like a foghorn as Riku leaps a hedge and pulls them stumbling into the dunes, Kairi still laughing too hard to see. They trip through the beach grass, Riku's long, long legs dragging Kairi breathless behind him, his face coloring from "sheer terror" white to "oh god oh god" red the farther they get from Sora's parents' house and their lingering shouts, and Kairi gives up the fight for air around her deep, convulsive giggles.

 

* * *

 

Sora drops his tray to the cafeteria table with a clatter of plastic cutlery and under-ripe fruit.

"Did you try and panty raid my parents last night?"

Riku groans and drops his face into his hands.

"I thought it was your room," he croaks, bangs dangling in the cafeteria's deeply questionable fish curry as Kairi busts out laughing. Sora scratches at the underside of his jaw with a butter knife, looking contemplative.

"So you were trying to raid  _my_  panties," Sora says, and gestures with his butter knife jaw-scratcher. Selphie, forsaking entirely the pretense that she isn't listening to this, snorts milk up her nose.

Kairi had been certain that last night was some kind of unprecedented miracle, a true blessing from on high, but this conversation, right now, may just be the delicious maraschino cherry placed delicately atop the ice cream sundae of Riku's crippling shame. Riku blushes up to his hairline and the tips of his ears, rubbing his hands over his eyes like this is some dream he can awaken from. It is not, and instead Sora laughs, his eyes crinkling and voice bouncing, drawing the attention of half the cafeteria.

"We really were just trying to bring you down to the beach," Kairi says, putting a hand to Sora's, because she is a kind and benevolent soul and Riku really does like he's about to shamefully kick the shame-filled shame bucket. Wakka claps an arguably comforting hand to Riku's back. Riku stares out between his own fingers, glaring at Sora with an expression somewhere betweenmurder! and deep, deep despair. "Riku just... overshot a little."

"Just a little," Sora grins. "He'll make it to my panties next time, right?"

About half the cafeteria turns to look, again, when Riku makes a noise like a toad dying slowly. Sora just looks pleased he managed this "sarcasm" gadget all the kids are talking about these days.

"Fuck youuuuu," Riku continues, magnanimously, and Sora laughs until he chokes on a hunk of fish and then Tidus has to smack him on the back for a good five and a half minutes while Selphie pours water down his throat. Kairi, in her rush to take a selfie commemorating this moment, completely forgets to ask Sora where he actually was last night while his friends were throwing rocks at this window and breaking into his house.

When she does remember, some two hours later in Calculus I, she doesn't think much of it. It's a bit strange, admittedly, for Sora to be somewhere late at night that Kairi and Riku aren't, but nothing worth harping on, she figures. It's Sora, after all. He's always fine.

 

* * *

 

Some days later, Sora's mom raises a decidedly unhappy eyebrow, and Kairi knows it isn't directed at either of the two of them, but she's not sure if Riku's party to the same knowledge. He appears to be edging back down the block.

"Sora wasn't at school with you?" Sora's mom says, eyes narrowing, and yeah, okay, Kairi could do with a quick out from this conversation, too.

"No, he, uh... texted us to say he was sick?" Kairi replies, her loyalty to Sora completely trumped by Sora's mother, and Sora's mother's face, and Sora's mother's accusatory eyebrow, "Which is why we came and... brought him his homework..."

She trails off. Riku produces the homework in question from where he's hiding behind Kairi. She comes up to about his collarbones, and his eyes are wide with fear.

"Well," Sora's mother says, slowly, calmly, and takes the paper from Riku's reluctantly outstretched hand. "If you do see him, please send him home. It seems I need to talk to him."

"He's not in trouble is he?" Riku asks, which, Christ, Riku, panic harder wouldn't you please, but Sora's mom only purses her lips again and puts a hand to the front door.

"We'll see," she says, then, as if suddenly remembering that she loves Riku and Kairi like her own blood and frequently sneaks little baggies of trail mix into their backpacks when she thinks they're not looking, smiles politely at the both of them. "Thank you for bringing his homework, guys. Tell your parents I said hello."

She still manages to shut the door with a bit more force than usual.

"So..." Riku says, as they turn back down the front walk and Kairi remembers how breathing works.

"So we better find him before she does, huh?"

Riku looks a bit grim. "Play Island?"

"Oh, yeah. You can row."  

And he does, after Kairi makes a show of whining and pouting and indelicately petting his biceps. They both know she could carry the entire boat and Riku in it at this point, keyblade training is some real shit, but Kairi's found that Riku likes doing silly things like rowing across the channel for her. He smiles, at least, when she balances her feet in his lap and leans back against the dingy rowboat’s stern, letting her fingers drag in their wake, and he doesn't even take much offense when she tries to push him off the dock at the Island. Really, she thinks, as she loops an arm around his neck and kisses him hard enough to stop his spluttering, he's become the kindest of souls.

"So," Riku huffs as Kairi leads the way off the dock, apparently trying to stop blushing through sheer force of will, "the secret place?"

It is their default hideaway— from parents, King Mickey, and the entire rest of the multiverse, but Sora isn't there. Nor is he out on the paopu tree's little island, nor in the shack by the waterfall, nor up among the tree houses, although Kairi does find the bikini top she lent Selphie the other week, covered in sand and sea salt. It's not until Kairi and Riku think to check the windward shore of the island that they find their errant boyfriend, standing up to his ankles in the surf, staring out at the edge of the world.

"Sora?" Kairi calls out from the top of the doorway's little cliff. He's not too far down the beach, close enough for Kairi to see the way his hands are balled into fists at his sides, but he doesn't reply. He doesn't even turn at her shout, and Kairi raises a questioning eyebrow when she catches Riku's eye. Riku just shrugs, however, shading his eyes against the sun, and gestures down the steps. They jog out into the surf.

"...Sora?" Kairi tries again as they get closer, voice not quite so loud, but they're three feet away and Sora still doesn't turn. Kairi pauses, a hand outstretched, and wonders if Riku sees what she does, the way Sora stands like someone's forced a steel bar down the hollow of his spine. On Sora, who moves in ranging loops and slouches as a matter of principle, it doesn't look comfortable.

She can't see his face, the way he's turned out to face the horizon, every point of him seemingly fixed on that little dot of sky that Riku used to study so hard when they were building their raft. He still hasn't noticed they're there. Kairi swallows, though she doesn't quite know why, and brushes his arm.

"Oh, whoa!" Sora spins, almost tripping into the surf, and looks between Kairi and Riku with wide eyes. "You guys can't just sneak up on a dude like that!"

"We weren't—" Kairi starts, but Riku's already speaking.

"So, no school today?" Kairi attempts to glare at Riku but he ignores her, just watches Sora blink in the sunlight and scratch at the back of his head. He's breathing heavy, like they really did scare him.

"Yeah, ha, just wasn't really feeling it!" Sora laughs, which, fair enough, the three of them together have probably skipped about a collective semester since returning to the islands, but it's the togetherness thing that's key. Sora standing alone with his back to the island, heedless of the water seeping over his socks, deaf and blind to the rest of the world, it's... not quite their usual style. "I was only gonna miss first period, but I guess it must be lunch by now, huh?"

Now Riku does glance Kairi's way, but it's little more than a blink, a half second for Kairi to register a pale mirror of her own concern. "It's way past lunch, man," Riku replies, voice steady, smiling easily, like this isn't a thing. "Last bell was like an hour ago. You lose track of time?"

Sora blinks, his 1000-watt grin sliding an inch out of focus. "I... I guess so!" he says, still laughing, but one corner of his smile rides higher than the other and a line's appeared between his brows. He looks, somehow, as confused as they feel. "My phone must have died or something, but, hey, you guys are here now, we should go grab our suits and go swimming! No point doing homework if you didn't even go to class, right?"

"Right," Kairi says, mustering up her own grin, because she isn't quite sure why Riku isn't pressing this issue, but she sure knows a lead to follow when she sees one. "I found my bikini top, too! We can try doing that two-on-one chicken thing again, see if we can't finally dunk Riku!"

Maybe Riku was on to something, because it's like the world slips back into place. Sora laughs, open-mouthed, and Riku groans and puts a hand to his eyes as his complaints of "please can we not" and "you guys nearly broke my neck last time, come on" are ignored with extreme prejudice. Kairi loops her arm in Sora's and draws him, scheming, back towards the door to the rest of the island.

"Ooh, ooh, and then maybe if you grab him around the knees I can push him back over your shoulders and—"

"Oh my god, exactly, we'll make him get his hair wet and everything, he'll hate it!"

"Right, yeah, and then I can— oh, shit—"

She casts a glance back at Riku, just once, as Sora's distracted pulling himself out of a tide pool, but Riku only shrugs, face tight against the wind coming in off the water, and mouths  _good enough_?

Kairi frowns for a half second, but just to herself.

 

* * *

 

"Oh, come _on_ , dude," Tidus says, walking backwards in front of their little group to better cajole Sora into compliance. He almost trips over a break in the sidewalk pavement before catching himself, looking back up with his carefully-constructed pleading face still completely intact. Kairi rolls her eyes.

"We haven't sparred in like months, man! You used to be game all the time and then you were off like..." Tidus trails off, his eyes unfocusing a little as his brain tries to think its way around Sora's year of nonexistence, and, failing to do so, restarts. Kairi & Co. are, at this point, fairly used to it. "...You used to be game all the time and now it's like you don't even care! About sparring! With me!" Tidus rallies.

He waves an arm, as if to indicate the vaulting blue sky, the vast swampy taro fields away to their right, and the unfathomable depths of Sora's betrayal. "How could you not care about sparring, bro."

Kairi laughs  as Tidus brings his hands up in two, pathos-ridden fists, attempting to stare deep into Sora's eyes while still not falling assbackwards off the road and into a taro paddy. Sora laughs, too, of course, Riku faking a couple quick coughs on his other side, but still shakes his head.

"I dunno, Tidus," he says, smile waning a bit as he hedges. Sora's decision to stop playfighting with the rest of the island kids rather than slip up and reveal his own, literally otherworldly strength had never exactly sat well with him, and it tended to show. Riku and Kairi figured that it probably seemed, to Sora, too much like lying.

"No, no, dude, it's been so long. It's been sooooooo long." Tidus hops backwards over a curb and stares Sora dead in the face. "You don't get to skip out on this again. You. Me. The beach outside Selphie's place. We're going right now or else I'm cutting all your hair with safety scissors next time you fall asleep in Home Ec."

Sora gasps, probably actually genuinely appalled, and Riku goes a bit red trying to stop himself laughing. Tidus has stopped, forcing the rest of them to either halt or run him down, and sets his jaw in a profound, purposeful manner.

"We're doing this, bro," he intones, solemn and heartfelt, and Sora finally looks to Riku for help. Riku, being far out of his interpersonal depth, shrugs. Sora turns to Kairi as Tidus starts up another pout and Kairi has a brief flash of concern, more familiar than she'd like, because Sora looks so pale suddenly— no, has he been looking like that all day? but then it's gone. She smiles before she can remember to do otherwise, and Sora, seemingly reassured, smiles back.

"Yeah, ok-aaaaaay, I guess—" Sora starts, delighted to ham it up, but Tidus has already started whooping and leading the charge to Selphie's house.

"Gonna kick your ass!" he shouts as the road bends away from the fields and towards the shore and Kairi, despite herself, grins.

Tidus, apparently, has been planning for this eventuality for a while, and Selphie is already waiting at her own front door when Kairi and the boys (ft. Tidus) roll up. "He texted me," Selphie offers as explanation, eternally encouraging of Tidus' life choices, and tosses him and Sora a wooden practice sword each. "About a dozen times, actually," she adds, and shows Kairi her phone as Tidus bodily drags Sora down to the wide flats of the beach. Her screen is a mess of SELPHIE!!!! SELPHIE GET THE SWORDS!!!! SELPHIE HE SAID YES GET THE SWORDS!!! and then like sixteen sunglasses emoji, which, Selphie explains, Tidus only uses when most proud of himself.

Kairi and Selphie settle on the retaining wall between Selphie's yard and the beach, kicking their shoes off to knock their bare heels against the concrete, gossiping vigorously as Riku drops to the sand a few feet ahead of them. Sora and Tidus warm up on the broad plain of sand exposed by the tide and talk some genial shit, Sora of course using fewer swear words than is really dignified for a teen of his age, the sun blasting its merry way over the shore. Birds wheel squawking overhead, thin strips of shade coasting over the sand, and Tidus brings his sword down on Sora's with a thick wooden  _CRACK_.

Tidus doesn't, of course, in the end, really at all, stand much of a chance.  

Kairi watches the fight without much interest, too involved now in debating the world's best anime fight scene with Selphie, and it's not like she hasn't seen it all before, anyways. It's almost less fun to watch now, with Tidus only marginally improved since the bad old days and Sora holding himself back as best he can, though Riku at least seems invested. There's a moment, for instance, where Sora stumbles or slips in the sand or... something, something happens, and he seems to come down too hard on Tidus, swinging with the kind of force best housed in keyblades. Tidus leaps away, swearing, and Riku sits forward then, squinting in the glare off the water. Kairi watches from the corner of her eye, mouth still involved of the motions of argument, as Riku's hand tightens momentarily in the baggy fabric of his parents, but then Tidus rights himself, face aglow, and Riku sits back. The fight concludes pretty quick after that, Sora incapable of hiding endurance like he does strength, and Tidus finally groans, "Oh, god, uncle, uncle," and flops to the sand. "You win, this was a terrible idea, and I super hate you, how are you not even out of breath?"

It's not quite the truth, although Tidus is definitely the only person wheezing on his back at the moment. Sora stands over him, smiling, Kairi rather thinks, a bit weakly, and the tip of his practice sword drags patterns in the sand, like he can't quite keep a steady grip on it. Like his hands are shaking, maybe. Kairi frowns.

"Okay, okay," Tidus pants, face red as a strawberry, "Someone else fight him. Someone else— Riku, you fight him. Make him cry. Avenge me. Avenge your—"

There's more, but Tidus is easy to tune out. Riku looks Sora up and down, pausing, as Kairi did, on the too-tight grip Sora's got on his sword, noting how he looks, even after a good ten minutes fighting in the sun, paler than ever.

"You up for it, dude?" Riku asks, still seated in the sand, looking up to search Sora's face. No, Kairi suddenly wants him to say. She wants him to say no, wants it with every hole in her heart, and then they all can go home, and then something else can happen that isn’t this. Sora's standing too straight again, his knuckles are white around the rough hilt of his sword, and Kairi dearly hopes he'll say no. She doesn't have the language for this, this strange, emerging, concept that Sora might not be perfectly okay, and she's having trouble even fully considering it, let alone saying it aloud, and Selphie's looking at her a bit strange now as she stares at Sora working himself up to something, but she doesn't know what to do.  

"Of course!" Sora says, grinning, and Kairi blows the wind out her lungs.

Riku still hesitates a moment, arms crossed over his bent knees, but when Sora offers a hand, he lets him pull him up. Tidus sticks a hand up from his sand angel, sword in his grip, and Riku plucks it from him as he passes, following Sora out towards the waves. Riku still looks troubled, in his quiet way, and when they stop out on the sand, far enough away to keep from tripping over Tidus, Riku puts a hand to Sora's wrist. Between the rush of the waves and the birds overhead, Kairi can't hear what it is that Riku says, leaning in close to Sora's ear, but it doesn't seem to work and Sora pulls away, laughing, "Come on, man, of course I am!" Riku doesn't say anything in response, just taps one finger against his sword's cheap plywood crossguard, and when Sora drops into his stance, he matches. When Sora lunges forward, Riku, face still, leaps to meet him.

They clash and break apart, spinning away with more grace than Tidus could ever muster up, or that Sora ever dared show while fighting him. When him and Riku fight it's almost possible to mask it, Riku's inborn talents and Sora's sheer stubborn skill, just in how well-matched they are, each swing blocked and returned in something that feels more like a practiced dance than a real fight. Kairi, who watches them closely, trying to catch sight of Sora's face in between the swords and turning bodies, can see that they're still holding back, measuring the force of each blow. For Tidus and Selphie, though, it's something to see.

"Jeez," Tidus whistles, propped up on his elbows in the sand. "When'd Sora get so good?"

He's asked the question before, though he'll never get an answer to satisfy him.

Kairi tracks the fight as best she can, searching for some misstep on Sora's part, some validation of the worry still gnawing at her heart, but it's all very subdued, as far as Sora and Riku's fights go. Selphie sits back, too, never much for watching fights she wasn't part of, and Kairi chances thirty seconds of inattention to resume their chat, and then thirty seconds more when no great disaster strikes. Selphie shows her a couple saved snapchats and the sound of wood meeting wood becomes a background noise, something to tune out with the surf and the birds and Tidus altogether, but then Selphie looks up and shouts, "Oh my god, Riku, duck!"

Kairi's head whips around just as Riku roars, " _Sora_!" and dives. Sora's sword whistles through the air a bare moment after Riku's left temple makes itself scarce.

"Sora! Jesus— Sora!" he shouts again as he scrambles to his feet, just barely meeting a swing that cracks his sword near in half. Sora doesn't respond, hardly even blinks, only pivots and brings his down his sword again, and again, with the kind of force he uses against heartless and nobodies, and Kairi leaps to her feet, shouting the same goddamn thing.

"Sora, stop!" she shrieks, hands up around her mouth as Tidus scrambles up himself, eyes wide, just barely evading Riku as he dodges another blow.

Sora moves like a machine, like when Kairi's seen him fight the Organization but like he doesn't know they're gone, he's already beaten them, and it's Riku he's going after now, eyes blank and jaw clenched. Riku blocks another strike at his head, lucky to catch it against the crossguard rather than break his sword in two when Sora speeds up yet again, and swears between gasps. Sora's face is growing darker, some working of muscles groups Kairi's never seen before, and, before Riku can recover from his latest duck, he tosses his sword to the ground. A keyblade takes its place.

"What is that?" gasps Selphie, somewhere far far away, and Kairi's nearly tearing her hair out because Jesus, what the fuck is she supposed to do! She can't intervene because Sora's moving even faster now, forcing Riku from defensive to desperate, and, god, she isn't sure she wouldn't get herself killed. Sora's better than the both of them but at least Riku can fucking  _keep up_. His dark magic tricks have always made up for any inequalities of strength or skill, and he's certainly trying them all now, magic glimmering around his feet as Sora's keyblade finally busts his poor sword in two, sending the tip spinning into the sea. He manages a hop or two around Sora, darkness bursting off his shoulders, but all it seems to do is piss Sora off. He turns and spins, catching Riku right out of a teleport, and brings his keyblade down. Riku's bad wrist, the one Roxas broke however many years ago and no one managed to set properly and never quite moves as far as it should anymore, that's where he hits. There's a sick  _crack_ , and Riku gasps, and stumbles.

Selphie is shouting something. Kairi’s mind is white with panic. Sora surges forward, keyblade raised high for a strike that's going to break Riku's fucking neck, and Kairi starts forward, one hand raised, power bubbling up her throat, and screams, " _Stop_!"

Magic swamps the beach.

The time spell catches Sora full-on, freezing him where he stands, but Riku, and Riku's last desperate swing, are spared. The way it's angled, he was probably expecting Sora to duck. Instead he hits Sora full in the temple with the edge of his splintering sword, and Sora drops to the sand like a wet sack of dirt.

Riku wavers a moment, staring down at the crumpled body of his best friend, then slumps to his knees.

Everything goes quiet, a rising wind making the waves foam and spit, dolphins cresting away out to sea, and then Tidus snaps. "What the fuck?!" he yells, one arm still raised over his body, the other splayed out in front of the girls. Kairi has to duck under it before she can really start sprinting.

"Stay there!" she shouts over her shoulder, as Tidus goes wild-eyed at her and Selphie jolts forwards. "No, Selphie— both of you, just stay there!"

Riku's pulling Sora's head into his lap as she drops to her knees beside them, searching for blood with one gentle hand in Sora's hair, the other cradled against his chest as he apologizes again and again, more exhalation than words, "Shit, god, I'm so sorry, Sora, I'm so sorry—"

"Your wrist," Kairi pants as she puts a hand to Riku's shoulder, tide starting to coat her bare legs in salt. "Riku, how's your wrist."

"It's fine—I mean, it's broken, but it's fine," he replies, swearing again when his fingertips come up damp with blood. Sora's eyelids flutter a moment in Riku's lap, and he groans softly. Riku, despite his shaking wrist and bloodless face and the thin sheen of sweat covering his skin, manages to look even more pained. "Oh god," he says, and Kairi finally has to pull his chin up to get him to meet her eye.

"It's going to be fine, Riku," she tells him, trying for steadiness, holding his gaze as best she can. His eyes are wide, whites visible all the way round, but when she takes a deep breath he, consciously or not, matches her. Two pairs of legs have appeared in Kairi's peripheral, bringing loud, worried noises with them. "We just need to get out of here, okay? Can you warp us to the secret place or is that too far?"

"Too far," he mutters, eyes flicking back down to Sora shifting in his lap. "I can get us to the boats, maybe."

Kairi runs a thumb over his jaw, forcing some light magic through the contact, then lets him go. She doesn't have time for finesse, doesn't frankly have the skill for it, but Riku's breathing evens out, some lines disappearing from his face. "Get us to the boats, then," she replies. "I'll row."

Riku nods, looking grateful for any number of things, and far above the three of them, Selphie says, "...Kairi?"

Kairi looks up. Selphie looks near tears, eyes darting between Sora's head and Riku's wrist, one hand tugging absently at Tidus' sleeve as the Tidus himself heaves a few shuddering breaths. "Kairi," she starts again, the sunlight behind her picking out every flyaway hair, "What happened to you guys last year?"

Kairi's jaw works, soundless, as Selphie's waits for an answer, or a consolation, or something. Riku puts a hand to her arm, fingers cold with magic, and all she can manage is, "Please, just don't tell our parents," before the darkness sucks her away.

 

* * *

 

"No," Riku sighs, tipping his head back against the couch. "It was more like he knew who I was but not... I don't know. I don't know what happened. I haven't seen him like that in years."

Kairi raises a weary eyebrow. "You mean you've seen it before."

A deep flush works its way up Riku's face, not embarrassed but ashamed. "Once or twice," he says, like he had to work himself up to it, and Kairi figures she knows what he means.

She sighs, and works her fingers deeper in Sora's hair. His head rests in her lap, the rest of him laid out along the secret place's ratty red couch, and Riku leans against her other side, a warm, heavy weight. His wrist is in her lap, too, as she does her best to heal him and Sora both. Magic's not exactly her forté; Riku can use his dark magic and a couple fire spells with no small skill, and Kairi's got some unfathomable wells of power in her when it comes to light magic, but Sora's the only one among them who can attempt any other kind of spell without a) burning his own fingers (Riku) or b) burning everyone else's fingers (Kairi). Healing is part enough of light magic for Kairi to muddle through, better than Riku can, at least, but it takes a long, long time, and Sora has yet to wake up.

It's quieter, at least, in the secret place, the roar of the waterfall muffled by the old blankets they've hung from the rocks and roots of the little cave's ceiling, everything tinged a bit orange as the afternoon light seeps through the gaps in the stone. Kairi wiggles her toes in the dust and wonders idly if Selphie has her shoes. She wonders idly if Selphie will ever pick up her calls again at this point.

On her lap, Sora groans and stirs.

He’s got pink creases in his face where he’d lain against the folds in Kairi’s skirt, and, when he sits up, Riku jumps around to his other side. Kairi brushes the hair back from his heavy face, and Sora blinks at her.

“...Guys?” he starts, muzzy. “Where are we— oh.”

Riku’s taken hold of one of his hands, and Sora looks down at his wrist. It’s still pink, and swollen. Kairi’s best attempt wasn’t very good.

“How do you feel?” Kairi tries, irrationally hoping to delay Sora’s dawning realization, but he doesn’t hear her.

“We were fighting,” Sora says, voice slow. He raises his head to look at Riku. Kairi can’t see his expression. “I hurt you. I broke your arm.”

“I kinda broke your head,” Riku replies with a faint laugh, trying for a joke. It doesn’t work, and, Kairi sees this bit, Sora’s eyes start to fill with tears.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Sora starts, voice thick, even as Riku’s expression takes a turn for the wretched.

“No, Sora, it’s fine, it’s healing fine,” Riku says over him, still looking a tad too desperately pained to really manage placating, and squeezes Sora’s hand in both his own. “You can even fix the rest of it up later if you want, it’s just…”

He trails off and Kairi takes over. “Sora, what’s going _on_?” she says.

Sora doesn’t say anything, just ducks his head, and Kairi goes on, prompting, “Whatever it is, it’s been going on for a while, right? You weren’t in your house that night we went looking for you, and you haven’t—” she pauses, again pressing his bangs back from his face. “...You haven’t looked so good lately.”

There’s quiet, because maybe Kairi wasn’t the only one struggling with this whole ‘Sora may not actually be totally okay’ concept, and then Sora inhales mightily, cheeks damp, and says, “I got a letter from the king a week ago. There's something coming.”

Kairi, despite her best efforts, gapes.

“And I shouldn’t have lied!” Sora says when he sees her trying to hide it, earnest and terrified and miserable. “I shouldn’t have! I shouldn’t have kept it from you guys at all, but I didn’t mean to, really! I tried so hard to tell you guys, but then whenever I went to call you or text you or something its like… it’s like my fingers wouldn’t work right. I’d try, and I’d suddenly start remembering all those other times we left the Islands—and I’m glad we did, those times!” he adds, like he needs them to know, like they would think any different. “We met so many cool people, and we helped out so many friends, and we—we saved the world! It was awesome!”

Sora nearly beams, a sheen of his former self buoyed back up, but then it fades, and his expression sinks again, and he pulls his knees up to his chin on the couch. Watching it, it’s like lead's filled every hollow in Kairi’s chest.

“But whenever we left, people always got hurt,” he mumbles into the fabric of his pants, moment of joy extinguished. His hand slips from Riku’s grip and no one seems to know what to do about it. “Goofy. Axel. ...You guys. You guys got hurt. And whenever I’d try to tell you about the letter, that was all I could remember, and I just… I love you guys so much, right? You’re my best friends and we make out a lot and that’s even better and I’m— I’m really scared.” Wet patches bloom on his pant knees. Kairi’s heart twists. “I tried to tell you guys. I swear.”

He trails off, and Kairi swipes a hand over her cheeks. When that doesn’t actually stop her crying, she buries her face against Sora’s shoulder and wishes, with desperate selfishness, that he’d hug her back. She hears Riku say, slowly, from Sora’s other side, “So when we were fighting, then…”

Sora seems to contract even further into himself, back curving in Kairi’s arms. “I didn’t—” he starts, voice muffled by fabric and snot, “Everything was fuzzy, and I kept hearing echoes, and I— I thought it was that other time.” He tilts his head, and Kairi sits back as he stares wretchedly at Riku. “I thought you were still Ansem. I thought… god, I’m so sorry, Riku, I’m so sorry—”

“No,” Riku cuts him off, resolute despite the stubborn, overbright shine to his eyes . “It’s, it is what is is, okay? I know you never meant to hurt me— no,  _it’s fine,_ and of course I forgive you, you idiot, I just…” he deflates a little, looking more than a little lost himself.

“Sora,” Kairi says, and both the boys turn. “We’re sorry, too. We thought something was up but we didn’t do anything about it, I guess because we just thought you’d work it out, and that wasn’t fair to you. You shouldn’t have to deal with all this stuff alone. But it’ll—it’ll be okay, you know? Whatever the king wants. I’m scared, too, of all this stuff that keeps happening to us, and, like, I’ve been a soulless zombie for half the good stuff, but… I’m not anymore, right? I’m fine now. You protected me. You protected Riku, too, and Riku protected you, and—”

“And Kairi brought us both home from the end of the world,” Riku adds, finding his footing.

“Right, I totally, did, didn’t I,” she smiles. Sora’s head swings back and forth between them, and, maybe it’s him attempting to follow the conversation, maybe it’s something else, but he relaxes a little against the couch and between the two of them, letting his feet slide back to the floor. “And now I’ve got a keyblade, right? And we’re all training together and getting stronger, and the point is, Sora, that we’ve gotten hurt before.”

Sora winces.

“And, to be really honest, we’re probably gonna get hurt again.”

Sora winces harder.

“And it is super scary,” Kairi says, soldiering on. She learns hard into Sora’s side, so that he’s forced up against Riku, and Riku can throw an arm around them both. It’s not exactly comfortable, but they will deal. “But we’ll look out for each other. You’ll rescue us and we’ll rescue you, every single time.”

Sora, the filling in this snotty, overemotional teen sandwich, seems to consider this. He sniffs mightily, wiping his nose on his glove, and, okay, that’s a bit gross, Kairi knows how often those things get washed, but then he says, voice rising a little, “Really?”

“Really,” Riku replies, without a second’s hesitation, and his voice kind of rumbles through all three of them piled together. “Every time.”

“Nothing’s been able to stop us so far,” Kairi adds.

“We’ve probably survived the end of the world about five times now,” Riku says.

“Right, and we’ve only gotten stronger since then!”

“I mean, I’m probably immortal by now, I don’t know about you guys.”

Sora snorts and Kairi giggles and Riku grins, pleased, and something dark and tense trickles away from the three of them to dissipate in the light. Sora relaxes against Riku’s chest and Kairi spreads out against his, breathing a bit easier as his hands come up to play with her hair, tickling behind her ear.

“Don’t,” Kairi says, warning, when she feels Sora’s chest rise after a moment. “No more apologizing from you. You are all apologized out.”

Sora exhales, laughing softly, and Kairi adds, softer herself, “Just tell us next time, if you’re not doing so hot. We’ll try to help. I don’t know how well we can, but… we’ll try.”

Riku hums his agreement. Sora’s quiet a moment, about as uncharacteristic as anything else he’s done in the past few days, although maybe that’s not so useful a label anymore, then says, “Okay.”

Kairi almost expects there’ll be more, but there isn’t. Just okay. Sora shifts under her, pulling her up against his chest, and kisses her, and that’s okay, too. Riku lets them be a moment and then he’s there, and they kiss him. The sunlight filters warm and red into the secret place, and everyone is, for the most part, on the whole, all things considered, okay. There are worse things to be. 

**Author's Note:**

> Computer's back and formatting's fixed, so now I can do proper notes! The rationale for this story was basically "man I wanted Kairi POV!" and "man why does Riku get all the angst?" with a dash of tumblr user ramflega's adorable art of all the kids texting thrown in for good measure, and I'm flattered it's gotten such a nice response. 
> 
> I can't find a source for the whole "Roxas broke Riku's wrist in 358/2 and that's what that goofy armwarmer in kh2 was" concept that I predicated the fight scene on, but eh. It may just be some lingering fanon from the bad old ff.net days, but I like it either way. It would explain the poor kid's lopsided fight animations in kh2 anyways.


End file.
